Mike,
In my experience the board works fine the way it is. I leave it
down all the time except when sailing skinny water. I'm no racer,
though. I think Jerry may have built a boat or two with an arrangement
using a screw jack type assembly to raise and lower the board but he
abandoned that design. I've never heard of an M17 suffering a knock
down/rollover that would send the board crashing up into the trunk. I
don't think wind would do it but a big wave catching you broadside
certainly could. It's not a very likely event, however. What kind of
water do you sail? Good luck with your modifications. When you work
something out be sure to post photos for us.
Mark Dvorscak
M17 #400 Grace
M23 #74 ????? (maybe "More Grace")
-----Original Message-----
From: MC Carpenter
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 6:12 PM
Subject: M_Boats: Re: screw jacks
The model I am building now is using an old trailer screw jack
(advise!!!!
get the grease off first) and I measured it tonight and it takes a
little
over 30 turns to go from up to down, On my other centerboard boats I
always
left the board up except to windward. This is just the test to see if it
works stage so there will be changes to be sure. The top of the plate I
have
added the a lower end of a open-ended turnbuckle with the upper end a
swivel, The inside of the swivel is tacked (brazed )to the inside screw
mechanics of the jack. The whole thing is way to big to use in real life
as
yet and it will have to come down in size a lot to fit inside the center
board trunk. I tried to get a single lever ratchet to work but it was
too
much like hard work. Plus I ran out of beer that day. The idea was to
take
the wheel hub of the kids bike which is about 10 inches across and hook
it
to the ratchet so one turn of the ratchet would be about 15 inches of
movement, but like I said that didn't go far as the spokes on the wheel
couldn't take the pressure and crumbled under the load. Well the kid
gets
a new bike for Christmas from a mysterious source. . And any questions
about
the bike,, well I never saw that bike, what missing wheel??? So I moved
on
back to the screw idea because I like the thought of some method of a
lock
down in rough weather.
Mike
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